Hell Comes to Mind
by Catbee
Summary: SatAM based. Not Archie or SEGA. A look into the mind of a roboticized Mobian and the ultimate loss of freedom. Rated T simply for the fact it's unsettling.


There was no word for it, really. He'd tried to find the right one to describe it, so that if anyone were to ever ask him about it- and if he were able to answer back, he could tell them. But there was no word that described it. Not perfectly, at least.

Hell came to mind.

But whether it fit... fit to describe what it was like to be trapped within your own body, your own mind. To have your skin and flesh turned to cold steel in a moment of pure agony, to have your breath _torn_ from you, to_ die_ but still live. Live. But trapped. Feeling nothing. Seeing everything. Being unable to anything about it. No. Living was not one of the words to describe it.

But maybe hell was.

Maybe. When it happened... the conversion, that is, he had almost known what to expect. Almost. He hadn't expected the feeling to be pleasant, it was after all the forcible change of flesh to metal, and that had not only met but also exceeded his expectations. And that was what he was worried about, really, the pain. The next part... he didn't know what was to come with the next part. He'd always assumed that when one was roboticized that their mind simply... was put into storage or something of the like. That they weren't aware of what happened, or of what they were doing. But he was wrong and he knew that now. When the change was happening he was so preoccupied with the pain he wasn't prepared for what happened next. It was like... trying to fight off a tidal wave with only a colander. It was too much, and before he had even known it he was swept away with it. It was like being blindsided and pulled out of the driver's seat. At first he panicked. After all, after that horrific pain he now felt _nothing_ at all. Stark nothingness. All the little background sensations people ignore... even they were gone, and to be without them was... alien. It was only furthered by the fact that none of his limbs would respond to his desperate cries. Like... like being locked in a little box with a little window you could only see out of. Almost. But it wasn't. When said like that, it made it seem like he didn't know what would happen next, as if he didn't know what he was going to do. Which wasn't the truth. He knew what he was doing; he knew what he was planning on doing, even though it wasn't his decisions. No. It was that of the programming.

It was almost symbiotic in the way it went, though he had no control over it. He knew what it was doing at the moment, and what it was planning to do, and all while using his body to do all the work. He would try to take control of himself, sometimes, but... every command he made to his own limbs was overruled by the programming... provided, of course, it wasn't what the programming wanted. If it was what it wanted, if he gave into its commands, complying, it was... almost... almost like... like being in control of himself again, it almost felt as if he _were_ guiding his own hands. Almost. But... he knew he decided nothing of it. It was empty control, even if he hadn't 'decided' to do it, it would have happened anyway.

And yet he complied, simply to feel that he was in control of things again. He would get caught up in it, just to be in control. There were times, he knew, when he forgot everything but what he was doing at the moment. Forgetting the family he used to have. Forgetting the war that was going on. Forgetting that he was once a living, breathing person who could make his own choices. And when he came to his senses again, he would always be horrified at the thought, knowing that he had even for a moment lost the only thing that was left to him, his mind, to the programming. And when that happened he tried to force himself to kick and scream and run and tear at the hair he no longer had and nothing would ever happen. Nothing would happen. Because he had no control.

And slowly, slowly, without even realizing it, he would slip away again, just to have that control back. The control that wasn't even real.

That was the thing that got him the most, really. The forgetting. The forgetting of who he was, forgetting of what it was like to be alive. He could remember what his favorite food was, but not the taste. He could remember the wind, but not the way it felt when it blew in his face. To feel. To be alive. He missed it and he no longer could remember what he missed. Even pain, even if it was the only thing he would be able to feel, he wanted. Just to have something.

It was… losing everything and wanting it back, but never getting it.

Hell came to mind.


End file.
